


Stars Are Also Better

by astralpenguin



Series: 3am [3]
Category: Death Note & Related Fandoms, Death Note (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Asexual Character, Asexual Yagami Light, Demiromantic Yagami Light, Fluff, Gen, Greyromantic Yagami Light, Insomnia, Late Night Conversations, Light Pollution, M/M, Or a lack thereof, Pre-Relationship, Sharing a Bed, Stars, Yagami Light has a Crush, Yagami Light realises he has a crush, Yotsuba Arc, he doesn't know these things about himself yet but he is, is it flirting? is it banter? who's to say, with a hint of angst because the context is inescapable
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:34:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23080246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astralpenguin/pseuds/astralpenguin
Summary: The night was cloudless and clear, and the sky was a uniform inky black.No stars.(can be read as a standalone)
Relationships: L/Yagami Light
Series: 3am [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1640104
Comments: 42
Kudos: 256





	Stars Are Also Better

**Author's Note:**

> i had L mention offhand that light had complained about light pollution, and then i couldn't stop thinking about it. so here it is
> 
> this is set before the previous two fics in this series. i'm not gonna reorder the series because i like it starting where it does, but if you're reading the whole series then be aware that this is technically a prequel

They’d gone to bed an hour ago, and Light was still awake.

More accurately, Light had gone to bed an hour ago, while L had sat on the bed next to him and stared at his computer instead, and despite Light’s best efforts, he hadn’t been able to get to sleep.

It wasn’t L’s fault. He hadn’t been tapping at the keys like he did some nights. He was going through surveillance footage from something, so he wasn’t typing, and he had headphones on. It was as quiet in their bedroom as it was ever going to get.

So why couldn’t Light sleep?

Maybe he was getting used to falling asleep to the sound of L typing? If that was what was happening, it would really suck. Light wasn’t going to be chained to L forever, and the time it would take to readjust to silence as he slept after he got his privacy back would be so annoying.

But L didn’t type every night. This wasn’t the first night that L hadn’t been noisy throughout. Getting used to something requires some degree of consistency, and L changed up what he did just frequently enough that Light _couldn’t_ get used to it.

So it had to be something else.

Light rolled onto his back for the fifth time that night.

Now that he thought about it, the answer to why he couldn’t get to sleep was actually really simple.

He wasn’t tired.

He’d _been_ tired. He’d dragged L out of the main HQ and to the bedroom _because_ he’d been tired. But somehow, the moment he’d got into bed, all traces of tiredness had disappeared from his body.

He sighed. This happened to him from time to time. Insomnia was a bitch that could not be reasoned with. He’d suffer for it in the morning, and would probably end up making everybody else suffer for it too, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it now. Sleep just wasn’t going to happen. He might as well accept it.

Whenever this happened at home, he’d use the time to read a book, or to study. He didn’t have access to any of his study materials here, and there weren’t any books in this room, no neither of those were options.

If he made it clear to L that he’d given up on trying to sleep, then L might take them back downstairs. For some reason that he couldn’t quite put his finger on, Light didn’t want to go back downstairs. Not yet, anyway.

He supposed that it was because he intensely disliked the idea of working straight through the night. If they went downstairs, then they’d be working, and he just didn’t want to. Not at 3am. Maybe at 5am he’d be okay to go back down. But that was two hours away.

Lying in bed with nothing to do but stare at the ceiling for two hours didn’t sound like an enjoyable prospect.

Light pushed the covers back and got out of bed. He walked over to the window, opened the curtain, and looked out.

“Light?”

“I’m fine,” said Light. “Go back to whatever you’re doing.”

L didn’t respond. Light assumed that he’d done as he said, but he didn’t turn around to make sure.

He looked out at the city.

The streetlamps were on. Cars drove by. Many buildings still had lights on. Light and L were far from the only people who were still awake. Most of the people who were still awake were probably awake on purpose.

One of the windows of the building directly across the road had its blinds drawn, so Light couldn’t see inside the room. But the lights inside that room were on, and Light could see the silhouette of the person in there. He idly wondered what that person was doing.

He looked up.

The night was cloudless and clear, and the sky was a uniform inky black.

No stars.

“Light.”

“What?”

L yanked on the chain. Light stumbled, and turned around.

Oh.

The chain wasn’t actually long enough to reach between L, who was sitting at the head of the bed, and Light, who was standing at the window, and still leave enough room for them both to have free range of movement. L’s arm had been lifted and pulled in Light’s direction, and L himself had ended up sprawled across the head of the bed. He’d taken off his headphones at some point.

He must’ve not pulled back on the chain at all until now, otherwise Light would’ve felt it. He’d just let himself be pulled out of position.

The sight of L lying across the bed like that was both amusing, and caused Light’s chest to clench in a way that he decidedly did not want to examine right now.

Though, to be fair, the sight of L doing _anything_ was starting to have that effect on him.

He _wasn’t_ examining it right now.

“You could’ve just said something,” said Light.

“This is me saying something,” said L. “I would appreciate it if you would let me sit back up.”

Light rolled his eyes. “Or you can move to the end of the bed, and sit there instead. It’s not complicated.”

L stared at Light for a moment. Then, he pushed his laptop forwards on the bed, and shuffled down it.

The tension in the chain between them relaxed as the distance between them was reduced.

“What’s so interesting about Tokyo at night that it was worth disturbing me for?”

“You want to talk about disturbing people?” asked Light. A bubble of laughter escaped against his will as he spoke. L really had no room to complain about this.

A small smile appeared on L’s face. “I’m aware that I’m often guilty of that myself. I’m merely curious as to what’s drawn your attention.”

Light shrugged. “Nothing, really. I just got sick of tossing and turning.”

L nodded. He didn’t say anything else. He picked up his headphones and put them back on.

Light looked back out of the window.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen the stars.”

“Sorry?” said L, removing his headphones again.

“Sorry,” said Light, “I’m not trying to interrupt, you can-”

“No, it’s okay,” said L. “I’m interested in what you have to say.”

If L had said that when they’d first been handcuffed together, Light would’ve scoffed at him, and pointed out that L was only interested in what he had to say because he was hoping for something that would point towards Light being guilty, which he was never going to find because he _wasn’t._ But it had been a few weeks now. They’d grown closer. They were actually friends. And Light could tell that L was being genuine.

Besides, it’s not like L could realistically connect any of what Light was thinking about to the Kira case.

“It’s the stars. I’ve never really seen them in person. I’ve spent my whole life either in or near Tokyo. There are a lot of people here, and that means that there’s a lot of light. Occasionally you can see one or two stars, but for the most part there’s too much light pollution, and you can’t see any of them. You definitely can’t see any tonight.” He looked out and up at the sky. “A starless sky is nice in its own way, I guess. But I don’t know. I think that I’d like to see the stars for myself one day.”

“That’s not an uncommon feeling,” said L. “The stars are beautiful, and very much worth seeing for yourself at least once. Pictures don’t do them justice.”

“You’ve seen them?”

L nodded. “I’ve done a lot of travelling,” he said. “I’ve spent nights in places like this, where there’s so much light pollution that you can’t see a single star, and I’ve also spent nights in places where there isn’t any light pollution at all, and the sky is nothing but stars.”

Light stepped away from the window and sat on the edge of the bed. “That sounds really nice,” he said.

L shrugged. He pushed his laptop to the side. “It was,” he said, “but I didn’t always appreciate it as much as I should’ve done.”

Light tsked, but smiled so that L would know he wasn’t being serious. “I can’t _believe_ that the person who was able to commission a whole skyscraper to be specially built in just a few months hasn’t always appreciated the things he has.”

L smiled back. “Twenty three perfect,” he said.

“That’s lower than it was earlier!”

“Yes,” said L, “but hearing you talk about wanting to see the stars had dropped your percentage to nineteen, so your comment did still cause it to increase.”

Light shook his head, but his smile didn’t leave his face. “How does wanting to see the stars make it less likely that I’m Kira? And how does acknowledging that you sometimes don’t recognise the things you’ve got, which is something that I’m also guilty of by the way, make it more likely that I _am_ Kira?”

“Intuition,” said L.

“You mean it’s all made up and depends on your mood?”

“Not always,” said L. “But right now, yes.”

Light laughed. He found that he didn’t mind L’s arbitrary Kira percentages as much so long as L admitted that they were, in fact, arbitrary.

And his father wasn’t in the room. That also helped. Light’s father never liked to hear L rattle off percentages, and him being upset about it always caused a chain reaction among the rest of the taskforce. Light’s father not being here to hear it meant that Light didn’t feel like he had to take it so seriously.

His laughter died away as he considered something.

“Hey, Ryuuzaki?”

“Yes Light?”

“Do you think that I’ll get to see the stars someday?”

L blinked.

If they were in any other situation, then the obvious answer would be something like, _‘Of course you will.’_

But they weren’t in any other situation.

If Light was found guilty of being Kira, then he wouldn’t ever get to see the stars. All that he’d see for the rest of his life, for however much time he’d be given before his inevitable execution, would be the inside of a jail cell.

It didn’t matter if he really was Kira or not.

It didn’t matter if he knew that he wasn’t.

It didn’t matter if he was doubting that more and more every time he thought about it.

“I hope you will,” said L. “But right now I can’t say for sure.”

Light nodded. “Okay,” he said.

“Light-”

“No, it really is okay,” said Light. “You want me to be innocent. That means a lot.” He smiled. “I want me to be innocent too.”

They both fell silent.

Eventually, L spoke. “If you’re struggling to sleep, then how about we go downstairs? Or would that be too close to admitting defeat for you?”

Light gently shoved L’s shoulder, and L laughed.

“I refuse to go downstairs before 5am,” said Light.

“So I’m right,” said L. “It _would_ be too close to admitting defeat.”

“You,” said Light, “are a dick.”

“Thank you,” said L.

Light laughed, and fell backwards so he was lying on the bed, looking up at the ceiling. “Remind me why I’m friends with you again?”

“My endless charm and dashing good looks,” deadpanned L.

“To be fair, you aren’t bad looking,” said Light.

“Not bad looking?” said L, amusement clear in his voice. “Light appears to be practising the art of damning by faint praise.”

“Do you want me to shower you in compliments instead?”

L lay back on the bed next to Light. “Please don’t,” he said.

“Alright,” said Light. “I won’t.”

He turned his head so he was looking at L, and found that L had done the same.

Their noses brushed against each other.

They stared into each other’s eyes.

The feeling that he’d pushed down earlier and decided not to examine came back in full force.

Shit.

He wanted to kiss L.

He’d _never_ wanted to kiss anyone before. Not ever. He’d thought that wanting to kiss someone was something that he wasn’t able to do. That whatever part of his brain that was supposed to control these things had never switched on.

This was a brand new experience for him.

He was just starting a mental assessment of whether wanting to kiss L had brought with it any _other_ new wants and/or experiences when L spoke.

“Are you alright?”

Light nodded, and pushed those thoughts and feelings back down. He would have to go through them eventually, but it didn’t have to be now. He could do it later when L’s focus wasn’t entirely on him.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he said. “Just zoned out for a second.”

“If you don’t want to go downstairs, then would you like to go over the rest of the surveillance footage with me instead?” asked L. “You might as well do something productive with your time, if sleep isn’t an option. And there’s a chance that you may notice something that I do not.”

Light nodded, and sat up, ready to watch.

L sat up too, and pulled his laptop over to them. He unplugged his headphones and pressed play.

**Author's Note:**

> comments make me really happy
> 
> come say [hi!!](https://astralpenguin.tumblr.com/)


End file.
